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US: Early Stages of Russia’s Ukraine Invasion ‘Unfolding’ Now

​Secretary of State Antony Blinken ​warned members of the United Nations Security Council Thursday that the early stages of a Russian invasion of Ukraine were “unfolding” after Moscow bolstered its forces along the border between the two nations in recent days.

Blinken, who swung by Turtle Bay on his way to Germany for this weekend’s Munich Security Conference, described the crisis as “the most immediate threat to peace and security” and called on the global body to “address” the situation.

“The stakes go far beyond Ukraine,” the secretary of state said in remarks lasting roughly 10 minutes. “This is a moment of peril for the lives and safety of millions of people as well as for the foundation of the United Nations charter and the rules-based international order that preserves stability worldwide.”

Blinken pointed to new intelligence showing that Russia is sending more ground troops, aircraft and ships to the region as it prepares to “launch an attack.”

“In fact, it’s unfolding right now, today, as Russia takes steps down the path to war and reissued the threat of military action,” he said. (Read more from “US: Early Stages of Russia’s Ukraine Invasion ‘Unfolding’ Now” HERE)

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How Young Ukrainians Are Preparing for Possible Invasion

As the threat of Russian invasion looms over Ukraine, the country’s young generation is preparing in every way they know how. . .

Other than the noticeable increase in traffic, the general atmosphere is calm in the capital of Ukraine. The difference, Vlasenko said, is some people are leaving the city and the heightened level of anxiety people are facing within.

“Many [of my friends] went to Italy, to the west of Ukraine,” to see their family, she said, out of fear of invasion. “I’m worried, actually. I can’t believe Russia” claiming that it has no plans to invade, because in 2014, they annexed Crimea and invaded Eastern Ukraine, she continued. . .

Danylo Sheiko, a 19-year-old medical student studying in Lviv, in western Ukraine, shared Vlasenko’s anxiety.

“It feels like something is going to happen. There is something in the air,” he told the Daily Caller, saying that in the event of invasion, he plans to go to work in a hospital. (Read more from “How Young Ukrainians Are Preparing for Possible Invasion” HERE)

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What if This Whole ‘Ukraine Invasion’ Was a Hoax?

Let me preface this with the fact that I don’t know what I’m going to speculate about here to be true, but it’s the only thing that makes sense of the entire situation. Of course, if Russia invades Ukraine, either by the time this is published Tuesday or anytime thereafter, this could look pretty stupid. Still, I’m willing to risk it because nothing else makes any sense, when you consider the entire situation.

What if the idea of Russia invading Ukraine is a hoax? What if it’s just Russia doing what Russia loves doing – saber rattling – and nothing else? What if the western governments scrambling now to “prevent war” know this and are hoping the whole situation serve as a distraction from the various “Freedom Convoys” forming around the world to protest oppressive and ineffective government actions related to COVID?

Joe Biden needs a distraction from a lot of things, inflation being chief among them. It makes sense that he’s spewing things in such a panicked way that even the President of Ukraine is confused by it. You’d think the leader of the country “on the verge” of being invaded would be sounding the loudest alarm, but he’s not. The American President is. . .

Honestly, if Russia did attack Ukraine you would care? Would you even notice?

The answer is pretty easy to figure out. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Did you notice then? How has your life been impacted by it? I’d bet not at all. So why would this be different? (Read more from “What if This Whole ‘Ukraine Invasion’ Was a Hoax?” HERE)

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US to Evacuate Ukraine Embassy Amid Russian Increasingly Imminent Invasion

The US is preparing to evacuate its embassy in Kyiv amid fears of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.

An announcement for all staff at the embassy to leave the country is expected early Saturday from the State Department, US officials told The Associated Press.

The families of US staffers at the embassy had been ordered to leave last month, but non-essential employees were left to decide on their own if they wanted to go or stay.
Some diplomats will be relocated to the far western portion of Ukraine, near the border with NATO ally Poland, so the US retains a diplomatic presence in the country, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are also scheduled to speak by phone Saturday.

US officials have warned warn that Russia may launch an invasion of Ukraine within days. (Read more from “US to Evacuate Ukraine Embassy Amid Russian Increasingly Imminent Invasion” HERE)

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Ukraine: Americans Must “Leave Now”; Senator Cotton: Invasion Imminent

Biden Tells Americans in Ukraine to ‘Leave Now’ as Possible Russian Invasion Looms

By Fox News. President Biden warned Americans who remain in Ukraine that they should get out of the country amid growing tensions along the border there as Russian President Vladimir Putin weighs whether to invade.

“American citizens should leave now,” Biden told NBC News’ Lester Holt in a pre-taped interview that ran Thursday evening.

“It’s not like we’re dealing with a terrorist organization,” Biden said. “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”

Biden also said there is no scenario in which he would send troops to rescue Americans in Ukraine trying to flee the country. “There’s not. That’s a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another,” Biden said. “We’re in a very different world than we’ve ever been.”

Biden also concluded that if Putin is “foolish enough to go in, he’s smart enough not to, in fact, do anything that would negatively impact on American citizens.” (Read more from “Biden Tells Americans in Ukraine to ‘Leave Now’ as Possible Russian Invasion Looms” HERE)

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Russia Likely to Invade Ukraine in Days’ Time as Belarus Military Drills Serve as ‘Cover’: Sen. Cotton

By Fox News. The expectation of Russia invading Ukraine is becoming progressively more likely based on recent military patterns, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., analyzed on “America Reports” Thursday.

According to Russian military movement and the commencement of drills with Belarus, Cotton anticipated that President Putin has every intention to attack the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv first, pending invasion.

“The sad fact is that Russia has troops encircling Ukraine and they’re exposed on almost every front,” he said. “But my estimate based, on the late troops movements into Belarus, is that Vladimir Putin decided that he wanted to get to the capital sooner rather than later.”

But the Belarus military drills could be all but a distraction, which has led the senator to believe that an initial invasion of Ukraine could happen in a matter of days.

“Those military drills… are nothing but a cover for a likely invasion,” Cotton said. “I think they tell us, since they’re starting so soon, that we could be down to a matter of days, not weeks.” (Read more from “Russia Likely to Invade Ukraine in Days’ Time as Belarus Military Drills Serve as ‘Cover’: Sen. Cotton” HERE)

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Biden Admin: ‘Body Bags Will Come Back to Moscow’ if Putin Invades Ukraine

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that Russian President Vladimir Putin should understand that if he invades Ukraine, “body bags will come back to Moscow.” . . .

Sherman added, “If Vladimir Putin takes that action, the consequences will not just be for the Ukrainian people, which will be terrible, but for the world community at large because Vladimir Putin will say that any autocrat can take action that undermines international principles that Russia has signed up to—to sovereignty, to territorial integrity, that countries get to choose their own political alliances and their own foreign policy. Added to that, not only will there be dire consequences to the economy of Russia by what we will do, not just the United States but this extraordinary alliance that exists with all of Europe and the United States and countries around the world. Not only will that create consequences, but Vladimir Putin should understand body bags will come back to Moscow as well — that the citizens of Russia will suffer because their economy will be completely devastated. So, this is a very stark choice for him.” (Read more from “Biden Admin: ‘Body Bags Will Come Back to Moscow’ if Putin Invades Ukraine” HERE)

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Vladimir Putin Inserts ‘Crazy’ Threat of Nuclear War Into Ukraine Diplomacy

Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the specter of nuclear war over Ukraine this week, a threat that strikes Western observers as both “crazy” and an effort to rig the diplomatic game in his favor.

“He goes pretty far,” Atlantic Council visiting fellow Petr Tuma, a career Czech diplomat seconded at the Washington, D.C.,-based think-tank, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s crazy to even mention something like this.”

Yet Putin broached the subject during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, who had traveled to Moscow in search of a way to avert a major new Russian offensive against Ukraine. It’s a shocking rhetorical maneuver by conventional diplomatic standards, but trans-Atlantic officials and analysts regard it as just the latest Kremlin effort to use the threat of violence to gain leverage in negotiations with Western officials.

“He perceives that it works as a deterrent against the West, to talk about nuclear weapons, to talk about nuclear war,” a senior European official told the Washington Examiner. “It’s not something that you hear that often in the West because people have a long-held taboo that nuclear war is not winnable and that modern countries don’t threaten each other with nuclear war.”

Putin and President Joe Biden affirmed the principle that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” but Western officials believe that Russian military strategists have developed nuclear weapons that they regard as substantial enough to win a conflict in Europe without provoking a full-scale nuclear response from the United States. Against that backdrop, Putin described a hypothetical crisis in which he would feel obliged to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia’s control of Crimea, a peninsula that he annexed from Ukraine in 2014. (Read more from “Vladimir Putin Inserts ‘Crazy’ Threat of Nuclear War Into Ukraine Diplomacy” HERE)

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Biden Vows U.S. Will ‘End’ Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline if Ukraine Invaded by Russia

President Biden vowed Monday during a joint news conference with Germany’s chancellor that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline “will be no longer” if Russia invades Ukraine.

Biden promised fuel would be prevented from flowing directly to Germany from Russia through the newly constructed Baltic Sea pipeline — before German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a noticeably less enthusiastic endorsement of the idea.

“If Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again — then there will be there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” the president said in the White House East Room. “We will bring an end to it.”

Scholz, standing next to Biden, gave a verbose answer in German to the same question from Reuters reporter Andrea Shalal, who pointed out that Scholz did not specifically mention the pipeline. (Read more from “Biden Vows U.S. Will ‘End’ Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline if Ukraine Invaded by Russia” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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U.S. Accused of Hyping Russia Invasion of Ukraine, Frustrating Kyiv, Moscow

Several current and former U.S., Russian and Ukrainian officials have expressed their concerns to Newsweek that U.S. intelligence of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine is being exaggerated, perhaps in a bid to deter further aggression from Moscow and avoid a devastating war. . .

But while Putin plays his game, some believe the U.S. and its Western allies are playing their own.

Former senior Ukrainian officials who are still in contact with the current administration and intelligence services told Newsweek that some in Ukraine — including within Zelenskyy’s inner circle — suspect their U.S. partners are exaggerating the Russia threat. . .

Klimkin, a co-founder of the Center for National Resilience and Development (CNRD) think tank in Ukraine, pointed out that past U.S. intelligence failures have left some in Kyiv skeptical. (Read more from “U.S. Accused of Hyping Russia Invasion of Ukraine, Frustrating Kyiv, Moscow” HERE)

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Teachers, Accountants and Priests: Ukraine Training a Civilian Army to Fend off Russian Invasion

The Ukrainian military is preparing civilians to fight off a potential Russian invasion.

Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Forces are made up of a civilian reserve army, including anyone from lawyers and teachers to nurses and priests, France24 reported Monday. The civilians are being trained with military rifles in skills like urban combat, marksmanship and explosives identification.

In Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv, which is just around 20 miles from the Russian border to the north, civilians can attend training courses every Saturday. There are signs posted throughout the city advertising the opportunity. The military hopes to add 130,000 civilians to the Defence Forces, as President Vladimir Putin is positioning more than 100,000 of his Russian troops on Ukraine’s border, according to The New York Times.

“The worst thing for me would be to find myself holed up in a shelter without knowing what to do,” 36-year-old engineer Alexei Sus told France24. . .

“I am a nurse during the day and for me, it is an obligation as a health worker to join the Territorial Defence Forces. I want to use my professional experience to save as many people as possible if the situation gets out of hand,” a woman named Alisa told France24. (Read more from “Teachers, Accountants and Priests: Ukraine Training a Civilian Army to Fend off Russian Invasion” HERE)

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